Friday, August 2, 2013

The Five Commandments of Tacos

I'll start by saying, I've never been to Mexico, nor have I consulted with any actual Mexican people in the writing of this post, so what I'm saying is completely uninformed by any actual...experience...or knowledge. Bit like the Catholic Church, really. Nonetheless, I have serious opinions about tacos and now that Mexican is the flavour du jour in Australia, verily I say unto thee :

One: Thou shalt not request cheese or sour cream with thy taco

Cheese and sour cream are for losers who can't handle the magic carpet ride of heat and flavour that a good spicy taco brings. if this is you, Enjoy your chiko rolls and potato scallops and go home.

Two: Thou shalt not use beef mince and Old El Paso taco seasoning and call it spicy beef filling.

In fact thou shalt not ever be in the presence of Old El Paso seasoning without washing thy mouth out with Cholula hot sauce. Which would not be pleasant.

Three: Thou shalt explain to me who thought up hard tacos.

What a stupid idea. Who wants to eat something that breaks apart and spills juicy yumminess all over you? It's street food, dumbass. It's meant to be held in your hand and gobbled down quickly.

Really, who was that person? i'd like to give them a big smack in the face.

Four: Thou shalt use two corn tortillas per taco.

Do not skimp unless you want to annoy your people by having tacos fall apart all over them. See commandment number four, regarding street food and the whole point of tacos being not to get all over you when eating.

Five: Thou shalt not even try to open a place selling tacos and not have carnitas* tacos.

Carnitas = braised pork and goes beautifully in a taco. And if you don't like/eat pork, you can do the same thing with lamb and it will still be yummy. This is possibly just a personal preference, completely uninformed by having ever visited Mexico, rather than a commandment, per se, but if you're going to make commandments you might as well make them work in your favour. *sorry vegetarians - it's possible to make a passable tofu taco, but you're not going to pick one up on the streets of Oaxaca. Or maybe you will. As I mentioned, I've never been there.

What commandments do you feel should be issued about YOUR favourite food?